Application Preferences

The plan for an app that I'm doing was to use SQLite for data and to
hold the preference settings as some apps do. The plan was changed last
week to allow the user to select the location of the data files (SQLite)
rather than putting it where the OS would dictate. Ok with that, but it
brings up some questions. First, I will need to have a file that points
to the location of the data file since that can't be hard coded.
Second, if I have to have a file that is likely part of the application
group of files, would it make more sense to use a more traditional
preferences file? How have other Python app developers done in this case?
Thanks,
Dave